


In which the Game is Played

by Writer_47



Series: Nurture [6]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:48:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26111386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writer_47/pseuds/Writer_47
Summary: #6) Follows on from 'Yacht', 'In which Gerri thinks about Age', 'In which they Holiday' 'In which Roman must make a choice' and 'In which Roman finds his voice'.Chapter 2 - Gerri has a date and flashbacks (finally) to what happened in Japan.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Series: Nurture [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883719
Comments: 21
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

*

Her options, as they were, had been limited, and the direction she took was going to be solely directed on whether she chose to follow her anger and really try to fuck Logan over, or whether she chose to follow the sensible, intelligent side of her brain.

In the end a lot of it had rested on her heart. Try as she might to hold onto her anger and utter disappointment in Roman, she still cared for him, and knowing what she did, his actions once Logan told him to do something, were understandable to her. Not justifiable, and certainly it didn’t make it any easier in terms of her own hurt, but she couldn’t overlook the fact that he was likely hurting too. And besides, she knew better than anyone the hold Logan could have, and she knew despite everything of Roman’s deep love for his father.

But whereas she had thrown her anger, hurt and abandonment into work, he had chosen the opposite. She’d heard through office gossip he had disappeared for a week; Frank had tracked him down in Vegas in some seedy strip club and she’d heard no more since then. She didn’t want that; she didn’t want him to revert to past behaviour or fail. She wanted to see him flourish.

She was thinking on this when she’d gone to Logan with the information that was likely going to temporarily bring this entire cruise fiasco to a halt. About her options, about Roman, and whatever leverage she might have and how best to use it.

“You’re not going to ask me to sanction a relationship with my son, are you?” he’d asked, and she was glad he was sitting down, because it made him look so much smaller, and so very old.

His eyes had taken on that watery pallor of old age. It was odd, how you could both love and hate someone at the same time. She had a bond with him, a loyalty built over decades together riding out whatever storm was coming. And then there were the links with Baird, his friendship, the fact he’d worked with him most of his life. She carried that loyalty for him too, when she’d been young and fresh and started at Waystar and this giant of a man had taken her under his wing and she’d fallen in love.

Odd though, for Logan to mention Roman directly to her now, after pretending he knew not a thing about it.

“I think that boat has long since sailed,” she said calmly. “But I do ask you help him,” she paused, “I’ve heard rumours he’s struggling and… he’s good, Logan, he could be very good. He needs a chance, support.”

He seemed to chew that over, he never liked being told anything, least of all from a woman, but she had him over a barrel.

“What else?”

She moved to sit in the chair across from him, placing the documents she’d been carrying on the coffee table between them.

It was late, after nine, and dark and raining outside the windowed walls.

“My position, it’s safe, right? Despite this business with Roman.”

He lifted his chin, nodded. “We’ll chalk it down to a mistake?”

She bit the inside of her cheek at that but didn’t break eye contact, only giving him the smallest of nods.

“One not to be repeated?” He asked.

“No.” She licked her lips, shook the heaviness from her mind and then continued. “I have conclusive information that the whistle blower has been financially supported by Gil.”

Logan’s eyes widened.

“And not just ‘supported’, I would say actively encouraged. I can put together enough evidence to throw huge doubts upon the case.”

“That fucking baw-headed…”

“Well, quite. The important thing is we either get it completely dismissed, in which case they’d have to decide if they want to start again, putting together another shot at us. Or it flounders for a few years in legal ramifications. Whichever, it will buy us time.”

“And take that prick out of the running for president.”

“Yes. He’ll be discredited. Meanwhile Shiv and I have put together a defence, we stick with my initial reaction. We accept something untoward happened and we lay it at Mo’s door. Pay outs are likely to the women who came forward claiming he’d harassed them, if we can do that quietly all the better.” She shrugged, “It’s a small price to pay.”

Logan was nodding, running it through his brain.

“How soon to get the ball rolling?”

“I can start tonight, make contact, arrange a press conference tomorrow and threaten to go public unless they agree to our terms.”

“Do it.”

She nodded, put her hands on top of her papers and made to stand up, his hand suddenly rested on the back of hers. It unnerved her.

“Thank you, Gerri. I mean that.”

“You’re welcome.”

She pulled her hand free and stood.

“I had wondered –,” he started as she moved away. “Well, doesn’t matter now.”

“What?”

“You could’ve gone another way, I was prepared for it, what you might come at me with.”

She bit on her bottom lip, eyeing him over her glasses. “I had considered that too.”

“My son needs to marry, have children, you understand that?”

She gave him a curt nod, but it stung, not only the thought of Roman having a wife and children, but the fact that despite all she’d done she wasn’t considered a viable option for Roman. “Goodnight,” she said quickly, and headed back to her office.

*

Roman lingered at the back of the room, his head felt like a balloon bobbling about on top of his body and that at any moment he might float away. There was little recollection of where he’d spent the previous night, but he’d woken up on his apartment floor and there was a girl sleeping naked on his couch. He had no recollection of who she was neither. He hid now behind the other members of the top team, there was much chatter and Champagne was being quaffed and he hated the sight and sound of it all.

Silence as the door opened and Logan entered, followed by Gerri and Shiv. He tried not to focus on her, had almost forgotten what it felt like to be alone in her presence.

“Now then, we all have a debt of gratitude to my daughter here, Shiv. But I think we can all agree that if it wasn’t for Gerri we’d be facing a very different situation, she nailed that old bastard’s bollocks to the wall! So, we’re going to toast her fucking wondrous brain for getting us all out of shit valley.”

They raised their glasses to her, and Roman couldn’t help but focus on her then, she was smiling but it wasn’t the kind of smile he trusted in, it wasn’t the smile she’d used with him, when they were alone. He hated that his brain did that, that it could whip back to a moment he didn’t want to revisit – lying in her bed, or in her arms, or his head on her lap. He thought of that a lot, more than he wanted to, on that yacht with his head in her lap and the scent of her, the sound of the sea.

“With all that being said we’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do, Frank’s made a good start on this. Roman –,”

He clicked his fingers in the air and everyone turned to look at the man at the back of the room and there were echoes of Kendall, a broken man, that same pale waxy pallor.

“Romulas sort yourself out because you’re with Frank on this, okay, and if you can’t fucking do it then get the fuck out.”

Roman raised his glass to his Dad and gave a quick nod.

“And then Malibu, we’ll have a long weekend together, to celebrate. Right, the details will be sent out, right Jess, is that right?”

She nodded. “Emails, dates, this afternoon.”

“So, bit of a celebration, get us through the end of February.” He clapped his hands together. “Onwards. Drink your Champagne and then get the fuck back to work.”

*

Gerri didn’t have a drink, in fact she followed Logan out and returned to her office. It was still hard seeing Roman at all, but seeing him in a state was even harder. In a way she hoped he wouldn’t make it out to the house in Malibu, she could really do without being in close quarters with him. They had become like partners-in-crime for a while, finding him sitting next to her at any given meal had become a highlight – he would be entertaining whatever the circumstance. At the start he’d sought her out, rushed to take the seat next to hers, she remembered how exhilarating that was, the realisation someone wanted to be near you. And as time went on she’d do the same, locate where he was, make sure she was in his orbit.

It was odd, the things she missed. His texts (the constant bombardment of absolute rubbish) should have been a problem, an annoyance, but no she missed them. She missed glancing down and seeing some ridiculous comment on her hair or a passing judgement on whomever was leading the meeting and it would make her smile and her heart feel light. It reminded her there was a world beyond the Waystar walls. She’d lost sight of that over time.

A tap on her door makes her look up from the tedious task of signing paperwork that had been left on her desk. Frank raises his hand at her as she looks up and she waves him in.

“You got a minute?”

“Sure.”

“Well done, by the way, saved all our skin.”

She rolled her eyes, “I’d like to say it was an entirely unselfish act but…” she shrugged, flipped her lip between her teeth. “I needed to make sure I was safe.”

“Yeah. I know.” He moved to the side of her desk, closer to her, his back to the glass walls. “You mind if I speak openly?”

“I’d rather you did, to be honest.”

“Roman and I, look we’ve never been straightforward. But as much as he likes to take the piss…”

“I know there’s some affection there, Frank, you don’t need to tell me that. You’ve always been a fair man. Is that what you want to speak about, Roman?”

“You broke his heart,” Frank says, his voice low but there’s a warmth to it, something born out of knowing each other for so very long.

She’s fiddling with the papers on her desk, trying her best not to look at him.

“I broke _his_ heart? I’m not quite sure how.”

He chuckled at that, “Alright, well he broke his own heart over you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she pressed her hands onto her desk, “It’s not like he was in love, so…”

Frank was close to her, almost leaning over her shoulder, whispering even though they were alone in her office. “I know what happened, he told me one night, after he’d thrown up on my shoes.”

“Lovely.”

“Logan told him to end it.”

She sighed, “I thought as much.”

“You or Waystar.”

She looked at him now, her mouth twisted to one side. “I would expect nothing else from a Roy, choose the company.”

“He’s struggling.”

“Good. He fucking deserves to.”

“You don’t mean that,” Frank patted the back of her hand. “You were a good influence on him, he was coming along nicely.”

He made a move to leave.

“Frank – is he,” she hated herself for this, for not being able to keep the wall up. “Is he seeing his therapist?”

He shrugged, his hand on the door, “Not sure, wouldn’t think so. We had a few weeks of him hiding away. Now the opposite, keeps disappearing, drunk most of the time. If he doesn’t smarten up sharpish Logan will cut him loose. Send him off to Europe or something so he can drown in some quagmire over there.”

She thought about the deal she’d tried to make.

She shouldn’t care, he was old enough to make his own choices.

“Anyhow,” he drilled his hand against the door. “See you in Malibu I guess.”

*

Malibu is temperate. Warm enough to be outdoors, not warm enough to feel completely relaxed. There have been few staff gatherings here, Logan usually prefers somewhere more remote, somewhere grey and drab where hangovers feel escalated and the normal world disappears into the outer echelons of reality.

Gerri though has been here many times, she can still remember long weekends here with Baird, when she was heavy with their second child and already beginning to regret conceding into having another. Motherhood never fulfilled her, and it had taken a lifetime for her to admit that without savaging herself. Roman wasn’t the only one to turn to therapy, the difference was Gerri quickly realised she probably knew more about life than the person she was paying to analyse her.

Three months in she quit and figured it out on her own.

She travels with Cyd and Karolina, their arrival met with drinks and nibbles in the vast lounge area. She’s sitting by the window on the cushioned benches, and Cyd is filling her in on Tom’s latest ridiculous statement and she’s smothering her chuckles into a Martini glass when Roman arrives. He spins in like some sports star, she can’t tell if it’s bravado or alcohol, but this tiny slip of a girl follows behind him and she almost vomits at that.

“What the fuck is that?” Cyd murmurs and Gerri hushes her.

Logan is holding court by the fireplace and Roman takes hold of the girl’s hand and whips her in front of him and despite the chatter Gerri tunes in, her eyes still focussed on Cyd, because she knows damn well most people in that room are watching her.

“Dad, this is Lara, she’s an up and coming actress.”

“Ah, very nice to meet you Lara.”

The young girl is coquettish without meaning to be, like Bambi trying to stand on heels, all long blonde curls and a feathery light voice. But Gerri knows enough to smell fear, and the girl is fearful of Logan when he shakes her hand.

“What the actual fuck?” Cyd said, her face turned to the window to hide her words. “Is she even legal?”

“Just.”

Gerri looks up as Frank stands over them, he smiles, putting on an air of easy chatter but the topic doesn’t fit his expression.

“Twenty-two,” he mouths, “met her at an event the other weekend. She’s followed him around since.”

“Well,” Gerri drained her Martini glass, “Good for her.”

Cyd glanced up to Frank, “Fucking idiot.” She stated.

“Quite.” Frank nodded. “Still drinking. Still pissing the opportunities up the wall.”

She looks at him then, can’t help it, glancing across the room to where he stands and he looks up as if he can feel her eyes on him and there’s this chill in his chest but he raises his fucking glass to her like a moron and she looks away again.

There are so many things he’d take back if he could. Too many things.

He’s drunk a glass of red wine within ten minutes of arriving and is heading outside with some of the others to play croquet and he drapes his arm around the girl and parades with her and Gerri is reminded of peacocks.

She rises, thinks she’ll go to her room and read for a while, and as she’s crossing in front of the fire Logan stops her.

“Gerri, welcome,” a kiss to both cheeks. “You bearing up okay?”

She looks at him then, thinks him a cruel bastard, wants to say it but can’t. This is her punishment, to have to watch, that’s her punishment – she had wondered when it would come.

“Yes, I’m very well thank you.”

“Well this is your weekend remember, to celebrate your achievements, you have centre stage at the dinner tonight.” He was holding both of her hands in his. “Full run of the house remember, make use of it all, the horses, the pool. Whatever the fuck you like.”

“Thank you, that’s very generous. If you’ll excuse me I’m just going to unpack.”

She manages to escape her room without being seen, intending to find some solitude and quiet by heading to the spa area. It’s not something she’d usually do, but since Christmas she’s found group gatherings a little too much and she really can’t stomach another round of ‘here’s my sexy fucking girlfriend who’s about forty years younger than you’. She fears she might have to be completely intoxicated to make it through the meal tonight.

People seem to have moved on, she and Roman are no longer of any interest and she hasn’t heard so much of a whisper about them either within the workplace or in wider society. But it still smarts, almost two months on and it still bloody smarts. She thought she was tougher than that. But that fucking text!

She’s aware she needs to get back out into society, she needs to start mixing again, dating again, attending the events she would have before Roman – isn’t it odd how that was how life was divided up now: _Before and After Roman_ , as if there had been some seismic shift in her life. It was the first Valentine’s Day she can recall where she didn’t have a date. She stayed home. She worked. But there’d been the embarrassment of being called down to the lobby by her doorman to accept the delivery of hundreds of roses. Hundreds of them. Red, white, pink. The entire lobby had been perfumed with it. Thank god the doorman had the thought of giving them away to anyone passing, he had been kind and considerate and she was so very thankful because it was unlike her to be so flustered.

She’d kept a few of the bouquets, had carried them back with her and then the doorman – George she’d discovered his name was, and how pertinent it seemed to not have known that before, how very selfish of her – had chased after her.

“Ms Kellman, there was a card.”

She was afraid to take it, let alone read it, but once she’d poured a drink and been alone again and was staring at the flowers she flipped open the tiny envelope. It was typed, not handwritten: _‘I would not wish any companion in the world but you.’_

Her breath had caught.

And then she’d laughed it off because Roman knew nothing of literature, she’d had believed it more if he’d sent her a crude joke, and anyway if this was him he would likely have been drunk when he sent them and unaware of his actions. She almost ripped it in half, but something stopped her, and instead she pressed it inside her bedside drawer and lay in bed googling its origins which, she suspected, was where he got the line from in the first place. More likely Cliffs Notes than any actual reading of Shakespeare.

The pool area was empty, which she was glad of, and she left her robe on one of the loungers with her book and got in, maybe she could swim out her frustrations, exhaust herself at least a little.

She must have been fifteen lengths in when she heard the door at the other side swing open and then the giggles of a young girl and she wanted to fucking die. Sink beneath the water and disappear.

But she couldn’t. Because life doesn’t work that way.

Instead she watches as Roman’s bare feet pad along the edge of the pool and she can’t help but remember having his feet resting on the pillow by her head when they’d laid at opposite ends of the bed and he’d tickled her toes

She glances up, his eyes are hidden behind dark glasses and he passes by quickly, draping himself on the lounger by hers.

Fuck.

She’s got to stick it out at least another five minutes now because otherwise she’ll look like a fool. So much for a moment alone.

The girl, Lara – she must start referring to her by her name – is getting into the pool with her and she must be a size zero, Gerri could wrap her hand around the girl’s waist. It would be so easy to hate her. To see her as some dumb bimbo, apart from the fact she’s smiling so winningly at her as she slips into the water, with these wide brown eyes and this innocence radiating off of her.

She has been around for far too many years and seen far too many innocent girls get fucked over. Innocence lost over the course of a weekend.

And then it comes, that wash of anger, she’s furious with him. She can actually imagine beating him around the head with her book, because whatever reason he’s doing this for it has fuck all to do with the best intentions of that young woman. And whatever excuses he might conjure up there comes a time when you have to own your shit and be a man, and that does not mean pumping some young girl to make yourself feel better about your shitty existence.

She manages seven minutes, she swimming on one side of the pool, Lara on the opposite. She’s faster, she notes this every time she touches the end and turns, but then she is actually trying to do it to stay fit, she figures Lara is splashing up and down to pass the time. For a young girl these weekends away, company retreats, are dull as a fucking brown walled room.

His eyes are on her every length. Every stroke. She can feel him watching her back and forth, the tiniest movement of his chin as he follows her. It’s painful. Embarrassing.

When she gets out of the pool he stares straight ahead, and she goes behind his lounger to collect her robe, because somehow him seeing her almost naked now is agony. Like being caught out. And her body being compared to this young, tight-assed gym bunny is humiliating.

“Gerri,” he says: dead, flat.

“Roman.” She picks up her book and exits into the changing area.

It is whilst in there, rinsing herself in the shower, that she hears somebody crying. It takes her a moment to focus in on it, but when she stops, stills, she can definitely hear tears.

“Fucks sake,” she murmurs to herself, because she knows who it is and she knows why and why does she have to be Saint-fucking-Theresa and deal with it, why couldn’t some other unlucky bastard get lumbered with it?

“Lara?” She asks tentatively and the crying stops. “Are you okay?”

There’s the sound of snuffling and then a weak, “Sorry.”

She closes her eyes, counts to five. “Hang on...”

When she goes out to her, Lara is still sitting in her bikini and she feels keenly aware of the fact she is naked beneath her robe.

“I didn’t have a towel.”

Her eyebrows raise, it is an entirely natural reaction. “You’re upset because you didn’t have a towel?” She does her best to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

“No. Because Roman wouldn’t fetch me one. Or a robe.”

“Okay…” She knew this girl was young, she hadn’t reconciled that with how immature she would be. “Hang on.” She leaves the changing area and returns a few moments later with both a complimentary robe and towel. “Put this on, you’re shaking.”

“He’s mean to me.”

“Oh…?”

“Like he brought me here but he ignores me.” She looked up at Gerri, her great dark eyes red from crying.

“Maybe you should have this conversation with him.”

“He doesn’t talk to me. I’m not even sure he likes me.”

Christ she doesn’t want to have this conversation. She’d rather be picking out her own nails than have this conversation. What’s she supposed to say, _‘Hey, only the other month I was fucking your boyfriend – yes, I know, a woman my age – so probably best we don’t discuss this.’_

“If he didn’t like you then he wouldn’t have brought you here.” Is what she says instead.

“His father is scary, he keeps going on about his father, and we never have sex. Like that’s weird right, he doesn’t even like me touching him. It’s weird. Have you known him a long time, like well, is he weird?”

She bit down on her lip.

“Lara, go have a shower, get changed and come to the dinner. The food is always exquisite and the booze is free. You’ll feel better after that, and besides it’s one weekend, you’ll be home again soon.”

She patted the girl’s shoulder, felt like some god damn matriarch offering comforting words to a virgin going to the slaughter. She was right when she’d called him a cunt, he was behaving like one at that moment.

She watched the girl tiptoe off to the showers, gathered her things together and left for the privacy of her room. But God, why did it matter that they hadn’t had sex, why out of all the things that girl had said did that rattle about her brain like it meant something?

*

Logan gives a speech, and she sits and she smiles through it, raising her glass, toasting her boss – beneath the table her fingernails claw into her leg. She sits down the far end of the table, away from him, away from Roman and Shiv, hoping to disappear. There’s this irrational fear that somehow things will get out of hand, as they so often do, and result in embarrassing escapades where grown men crawl about the floor fighting for dominance. She wouldn’t put it past him to make an example of her, to whip her back into place because somehow sleeping with his youngest son was a line she wasn’t allowed to cross.

But dinner passes without incident.

She hardly drinks, somehow manages to stretch out two glasses of red wine and make it look like its more. She’s been here before; she knows the games that are played.

After dinner groups disperse, there’s a Poker game going on in one room, music in another, she wanders for a while because she needs to be seen, cradling the still half-full second glass of wine, eventually finds Karolina in a quiet corner – she somehow always manages to find some giant chair in a quiet corner, a place to hide – and sits with her to talk like adults do.

The children grow rowdy as the evening progresses, and she sits back and watches from the shadows. Logan, puppet master, watching from the side lines as they make fools of themselves. These men, drunk on money and power. When Ray appears behind her it startles her, and he tugs on her arm, trying to pull her up. He’s got the kind of weasel face she wants to bite clean off; she could, she could snap him in half so easily she’d hardly even need to draw blood.

“Oh, fuck off Ray, for god’s sake, you’re pissed.”

“Come on Ger, have a dance.” He pulls her to her feet. “We’re all celebrating you!” He grips her then, one arm around her waist, fingers digging into her hip as he spins her round and she can hear the men jeering and this is what she was afraid of.

“Hey asshole!” She hears Roman shout from somewhere and she really doesn’t want things to play out this way.

She is the one in control, not a man, any man.

She jams on Ray’s foot with her heel. “I said no,” words like venom as he crumples; the others are laughing at him and she catches the smirk on Karolina’s face.

“Bedtime for me I think,” she says to her, reaching for her bag.

“I think I’ll make a hasty exit with you.”

The two of them are halfway down the corridor, nearing the staircase, when Roman slides down the mosaic tiles and into the side of her body.

“I need to talk to you,” his voice is scattered, eyes unfocussed.

“Not now, Roman,” she tries to be firm; Karolina is already climbing the stairs and she puts her foot on the bottom step.

“Gerri,” his hand grips her arm.

“For fucks sake, what is it with men thinking they can grab me tonight?”

“I need to talk to you,” he is so close to her face, his words earnest and demanding.

She looks up to where Karolina is pretending to ignore them, reaching the top floor and heading in the direction of her room. She contemplates shaking him off, heading to bed, locking her door.

Something makes her take a step back. She hates her heart.

“What is it?”

“Not here. I need to talk to you alone.”

She gestures around, “We’re alone.”

“Not here.” He backs towards the doors and even though every single part of her being is telling her not to go she follows.

The dark air is chilled, and she pulls her shawl tighter around her arms.

“Where are we going? I’m in heels, you know. And a… fucking… cocktail dress.” She complains as her heels sink into the grass. “Roman. Stop. It’s too dark out here.”

He turns his phone on, and she can see him leaning against a tree, hidden away from the eyes of the grand house.

“Where’s Lara?”

“Who?”

“For fucks sake Roman…”

“I’m joking, come on, she’s inside. I left her with Tom.”

“Best of a bad bunch I guess.” She finally reaches him, heels caked in the damp earth. “This is ridiculous, I’m sending you the bill for my shoes.”

“I’ll buy you new shoes.”

“What do you want?” She’s folded her arms, is standing in front of him trying to portray this solid, closed exterior when internally her heart is in her throat.

“I need to say something.”

“Okay.”

“Somebody told me… the other month, somebody told me to say something and I fucking haven’t okay, and I need to because it’s right here…” he tapped the side of his head. “So," his shoulders hunched up, "I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it?”

She shrugged, “What do you want me to say?”

“Like… I don’t know, like act like you actually give a fuck.”

“You mean like you telling me _sorry_ because somebody told you to say sorry is meant to show you giving a fuck?”

She made his brain hurt.

“I’m not saying it because of them, I’m saying it because I need to.”

“And there, you’ve said it, well done.”

“I could have picked a better moment.”

“You think? Wow. And there I was thinking being dumped in the middle of a fucking date was the opportune moment.”

“Christ, I didn’t know what to do.”

“Preferably not that.”

He ran his hand through his hair, “Gerri…”

There was that mournful tone to his voice, that deep well of sadness she so wanted to cure him of. But she couldn’t. He had made a choice. And her love could not compete with his father’s power or money.

“We were fucking that morning, Roman, we spent the night before fucking. You woke naked in my bed; you took me out for brunch. I took you to that thing and you let me introduce you to my friends and act like a bloody idiot fawning over you. And it meant that little to you that just like that,” she snapped her fingers, “you were out. Gone.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Oh! How?” She was gesturing with her handbag, angry with herself for letting him get under her skin. “You should never have gone; you should have done it there in my hallway. Told me to my face. It’s over Gerri because I’m too much of a fucking weak prick that I do exactly what my father tells me.”

“Don’t pull that shit, you know why.”

“I’ve just told you why!”

“To fucking protect you! You should know that. You think I want him targeting you, sending you to the fucking slaughter pit for those bastards to piss and jeer on, that you would go down with Kendall. And don’t stand there high and mighty and tell me how I feel,” he was pointing in her face, she’d never known him so extrovert with his emotions, “because you’ve got no fucking idea how I feel. No idea.”

She is breathless. Can’t stop staring at him. The heaving of his chest, the way he’s pacing nervous and uncontained.

She levels her voice, tries to sound calm, “I don’t want to argue with you Roman.”

“Argh, don’t say shit like that.”

“I don’t, I want us to just move on, move past it. We’ve made a start, it’s two months now. But you can’t… you can’t do stuff like dragging me out here or sending my flowers. It isn’t fair.”

“Fair? How is any of this fair?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, or do.” He was scaring her, she had never seen him to out-of-control, it was like witnessing a break down. “I can’t help you. You need to talk to somebody, your therapist.”

“I don’t want any of them.”

“Then what? What am I meant to do? You wanted out of this, you’re out, I can’t… I can’t fix it for you. I can’t be your friend.”

He seemed torn by that, “Why? I just need to talk to you, you know, call you, see you.”

“No.”

“I don’t understand… don’t be such a cold bitch with me.”

“Roman, you’re being irrational,” she felt more in control now, squashing her own emotions down to try and deal with his. “You wanted to end the relationship, fine, it’s done. Let’s not go over it. Thank you for apologising about how it was done. There. Over. Now move on.”

“I can’t.”

She bit on her lip, her eyes stinging.

“I can’t stop thinking about you. I need you to get out of my head.”

She was silent, because it was painful to watch him, painful to hear it.

“You’re here all the time and I don’t want that. So fuck off out of my head.”

“Roman,” she tried again, gently, “Please, go see your therapist.” She rested her hand on his arm. “I can get someone to take you, if that helps, Shiv or a friend, even Frank.”

He groaned, “No, I want you.” He pressed himself into her, his face hidden against her chest. “I want you…”

She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, pulse so fast she thought her heart might explode if she stayed much longer. His arms were around her now, holding her so tightly against him she couldn’t escape, and it was so easy to fall into that hot, deep desire that burned all the way through her core.

He was kissing her chest, moving up her neck, moaning as he found her mouth and kissed her forcefully. She returned it, this hunger that had been there since the moment he’d walked away finally being able to come out and scream for attention.

“Oh god no,” she mumbled against his lips. “No,” she pulled herself free, trying to extract herself from his hold. “No, it can’t be me. I can’t do this, I can’t…”

His body seemed to slide down hers, on his knees with his face pressed against her stomach.

“It can’t be me, Roman.” She shook herself awake, alert. Turned off her feelings. “You need to find someone else, get married, have children.” She was firm now, finding the ice in her voice that she needed. “And you need to stop drinking, do you hear me, pull yourself together, get back to work. And send that girl home because to be fucking honest it was downright cruel bringing her here. She’s a kid. She’s out of her depth. Send her home to her parents with enough of a pay packet for her to make a good start in life.”

“Gerri,” his voice was full of anguish, hands clinging to her legs.

It almost broke her, almost. “At some point you’ve got to take responsibility, Roman, you. Life doesn't work out easy, you can't have it all your own way. You can't throw money at it and hope it's fixed.”

“I need you.”

“You don’t. You need to find a path on your own.” She pressed her hands to his shoulders. “I have every faith that you can, but not like this, you already know that.”

She shook her head, because no matter what she said right now it wouldn't be enough. She pushed away from him and clambered backwards, up over the uneven grass feeling shaky and sick but determined not to look back. He was too much, this was all too much. Her life was steady and calm and he was the exact opposite. She was too old to try and live this life, to make it work with someone as unsettled as he was.

She needed stability, dependability. He offered neither.

And besides nothing had really changed, Logan remained, she might have secured her place back in his good books for her efforts with cruises but that didn’t change the bigger picture – she was not going to be with Roman. Ever.


	2. Chapter 2

_Don't call me "kid," don't call me "baby"_   
_ Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me _   
_You showed me colours you know I can't see with anyone else_   
_Don't call me "kid," don't call me "baby"_   
_Look at this idiotic fool that you made me_   
_You taught me a secret language I can't speak with anyone else_

* * *

There’s a place women go, somewhere off inside their heads, when lying on the gynaecologist’s table – when staring at grey tiled ceilings and fluorescent lights, mis-hung posters going on about washing your hands and sneezing into a tissue. Some cloud like structure creeps in and takes you away from the poking and prodding going on down below; the use of metal instruments to inch open something made of the softest tissue, the scraping of cells that feels like someone shaving your bone away. And then after, the clean-up, the odd spot of blood, and the slightly aching sore for the rest of the day – a stubbed toe, a snapped nail, an annoying toothache.

It doesn’t matter your age, your wealth or status, the experience is the same. Woman lies back with legs open, half dressed, paper sheets, undignified.

You shut it off, because you have to.

“Come take a seat when you’re ready.” She is told.

Gerri tunes back in then, the clouds disappear, she is practical and cleans herself up and dresses and goes to take a seat in the Doctor’s office.

“Well, your tests from last time all came back negative so no worries there.” He explains. “And everything looks fine and healthy. Last time we met you told me you were sexually active, is that still the case?”

She bites on her lip, “Maybe not so much.”

“Okay. Well, I mean there’s no reason to stop using the creams I prescribed, I mean, if you think you might be again.”

She clears her throat, “Thank you. Yes, they did help. It was… Never mind. I just wanted to check everything was – _clean_ ,” she settles on that last word because her brain won’t comply and behave normally.

The Doctor smiles, she has been seeing him for years, knows his family well. “You’re perfectly healthy Gerri, no need for you to worry. No need not to go on and have many more years of a sexually fulfilling relationship.”

“Oh goodness, can we not do that.”

He laughed, “I’m just saying.”

“Yes well I feel a bit bloody awkward about it all now. But thank you. It’s… reassuring. At my age.”

“You’re fifty-nine now, right?”

“A-ha, and I don’t even want to think about being sixty next year so let’s sidestep that.”

He laughed again.

“Are you… can I ask, still in the relationship, I mean, when you saw me last, you said...”

She gripped hold of her handbag, “No. I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“So, everything is okay, I can go?”

“Sure, yes. It was good to see you. I’ll be seeing you at the charity auction this year, Easter bunnies and what have you?”

“Oh god, I always forget about that. But yes, I’ll be there. It was the only charity Baird would support.”

“Martha and I look forward to it,” he leant in and kissed her cheek. “Take care.”

“Thank you.” She ambles out, her stockings are twisted at the back and she feels like she desperately needs to pee but instead she walks on snapped heels and kisses her Doctor goodbye because that’s what women do.

She’s not even entirely sure why she kept the appointment, only that when she made it her relationship with Roman was going full throttle and she wanted to be sure everything was in good working order. Nobody talks about things like that in polite society, sex for women over sixty, they just assume it stops – but of course it doesn’t. Desire is as much a part of the brain as it is the body. She sometimes wishes it weren’t, because she’s found herself missing the sex, now it’s over. Lying in bed and thinking far too much about him and how good it was to have somebody so attracted to you. Somebody who absolutely worshipped your body.

That was a part of the loss she hadn’t prepared for. Physical loss.

On the street outside the private clinic she twists her watch around, it is just after one and she thinks she’ll treat herself to lunch somewhere expensive and go back late to the office. She’s just had somebody scraping about in her vagina – she deserves a glass of red wine and an over-priced steak.

*

The first time he attends a meeting again he’s two weeks sober. Well, semi-sober. He likes to think of sober as returning to his previous, usual drinking level rather than the litres of alcohol he was pouring into his gut since December. And Kendall is there.

He knew he would be. Frank had prepared him. It was the first time seeing him since the entire thing had kicked off. He long since gave up trying to understand his Dad’s actions and motivations, but there’s a twist to his gut, on the one hand he thinks the traitorous jerk should be pushed out of the top floor window; on the other, well, he’s his big brother.

When he enters the conference room, bobbing on the ball of his feet with that light energy he so easily rides, Kendall is seated beside Gerri and this poses yet another problem. He’s got to look at both of them together. She looks up when he enters, and there’s this strange half smile on her lips, like her eyes flutter with pride, but then she looks away again, so fleetingly it might never have happened.

He passes them, gets coffee, a pastry, returns to his seat across from them. He finds his phone, flicks through rubbish to distract him.

“You look good, bro,” Kendall says.

“Yeah well, we all know you’re a bullshitter ratfuck, so…”

And he catches her smirk then, as if he’s tuned into the tiniest little movement of her face. Nobody else even notices, it’s like time stopped and they were all frozen and only he witnesses it.

Kendall laughs, “Yeah. Missed that.”

And then Logan is there, and Shiv, and he worries for a moment as his sister sits beside him, because his position was always tenuous at best and, despite starting well, he’s made a pretty poor showing of late. By the end of the meeting he fully expects to be replaced.

“So, first on the agenda – Romulas, your review.”

“Oh come on Dad, we don’t need to do this, do we?”

“We’ll hear from various parties on how you’ve worked with them first, communication is key,” he says, which Roman thinks is a fucking lie because if there’s one thing his father can’t do it’s communicate.

“This is mortifying,” he complains, and he feels like a child again as he flicks through the pile of documents in front of him.

For almost fifteen minutes the discussion plays out, Roman defending things he hasn’t done, being questioned over the things he has. It’s like being lined up and everyone taking a shot and he thinks for sure Shiv is probably relishing this and, perhaps for the first time, he recognises what it is to be Kendall and take the hits and still be able to get back up. Now his brother is back he hopes they can somehow build bridges. He’d never admit it, but he’s missed him.

“I see no reason for Roman to be removed from the position,” Gerri says firmly, suddenly, bringing the debate to a halt, and his heart stops, because it’s the first time she’s spoken in all of this and she’s on his side. “Frank, you said he’s back up to speed and you’re happy and it’s your opinion that counts.”

“Very much so, he’s doing well Logan, coming along well.”

“Fair enough,” Logan nods, “so Roman you keep the position, for now. But any more fuck-ups you’re out, done, we can’t keep having this. Shiv, you’ll shadow for now: Gerri, Karl, and then Roman, work out a system. And Kendall, with me, my assistant if you will. Let’s see how it plays out.” He drums his hand on the table. “So, Ray, get us up to speed – and we’re not talking about your fucking time at Mont Blanc, you dirty bastard.”

Roman smirks, and he looks up at the exact moment she does, and for a moment he feels like they’re sharing that joke together. Like they would have. Her eyes are bright behind her glasses and she purses her lips as if to stop herself, but it was there, momentarily – their eyes had locked and they’d smiled together and he feels like he’s coming back to life.

*

**_Japan – past_ **

The first time he can remember that feeling was in Japan. He had always thought Gerri some systematic machine, she never missed a beat, never made a mistake. The one you went to when you needed something done cleanly and efficiently.

And despite that, she was hot.

He’d acknowledged this as a teenager during one of her many weekends at their properties. But she was just another hot older woman, one of many of Dad’s friends who came over and he would lie by the pool in the hot summer sun and rank them by which one he would like to fuck first. She was never top of the list, but she was never bottom neither.

She had this sharpness about her, this intelligence, and he respected that, because he’d been called a moron one too many times and the opposite of that – her – was being respected for your brains. He kind of wanted to suck some of that up.

That was his plan, he’d formed it whilst lounging on one of the sofas on the private jet. Sixteen fucking hours of that jet. And just six of them – Gerri, her assistant, Roman, his assistant. Two security. He was bored as fuck. There were only so many times he could try to engage Robert in some kind of lively debate before he wanted to throw the guy off the plane. He wished he’d taken something before he boarded, something to take the edge off.

She worked most of the time, he didn’t think she ever stopped working. Seated at one of the tables with her laptop open and a never-ending cup of coffee.

“What do you do?” He had asked. “Like you never fucking stop, what is there to do?”

She looks up over her glasses at him, which he finds incredibly sexy. “I’m working, do you mean you actually want to know exactly what it is I’m doing?” She seems surprised by this but he nods, in that arrogant way he has. “I’m reading through the paperwork on the takeover bid, finding loopholes, listing my initial thoughts, responses, you know. And then I’m emailing them back to the office for my team to develop lines of argument which then they’ll return to me and I’ll fish through them and decide the strongest ones to use. Then we flesh it out.”

“No offence, but that seems boring as fuck-a-doodle-do-me.”

“Well, boring or not, it’s what I’m paid to do. So.”

He shrugged, looked up at the ceiling again, “You think they’ve got a good chance?”

“What, of forcing the board’s hand?” She sits back, stretching her legs. “Do you actually want to have this conversation?”

“It’s either this or reducing myself to Solitaire on my phone, so at the moment you’re edging out.”

“I’m so unbelievably flattered.”

He smiled at that, glanced over to her, she was sarcastic, he liked that.

He bounced up from the couch and took the seat across from her.

“Explain it to me.”

“They have a good shot,” she said, reaching for her coffee cup. “If they can prove Logan isn’t on the ball, that things are being poorly handled…” she shrugged, “some might just align with them.”

“So we…?”

“Get our house in order. No fucking rockets exploding would be a start.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Honest mistake, anyone can make it.”

He laughed again, “You’re _that_ fucking bitch aren’t you.” He said, wagging his finger at her and at the opposite side of the cabin he noted Robert and Deb exchange glances, but she never flinched, she just jerked her chin.

“I am.”

“Ha, I like it. I was right, wasn’t I, Lady MacBeth.”

“You ever actually seen a play, Roman, forget Shakespeare, like any fucking play. Ever?”

“Hmm, I think I recall going to the pantomime aged around six.”

“You are a fucking pantomime.”

Now, this was fun.

She was intriguing, she was technically talking to her boss, but she gave it him back as much as he did her. She was quick; he knew he was quicker, always had been, always able to run rings round most others in the conversation, but she was only a beat behind him and besides she knew more so he had to be on his toes with her – ready to retaliate.

“You think this business is going to play out badly?”

“The rocket? Well, I mean, it’s hardly an advantageous situation is it? But we’ve covered the legal end really, and you’ve got the hospital visits, they should play well in the press. Compensation. Technical error. It should be okay.”

“And my er emails…?”

“What emails?” She said innocently and he smiled. “I wasn’t aware any existed.”

“You’re very good.”

“Thank you,” she took another sip of her coffee. “To be honest I’m not even sure why I’m here. Someone else could have handled this, I’ve done all the prep work, everything is covered. Your father insisted I accompany you.”

“Probably thinks you might keep me out of trouble.”

“Does anybody, or has anybody, ever had that power?”

He smirked, but there was a challenge in his tone, “Not yet.” He gets up then, fetches an orange juice, but returns to face her, one foot up balancing on the chair. “So, take me through it.”

“What I’m doing now?”

“Yeah. Explain it to me.”

“You actually want to know?”

“Yeah, I mean,” he took a gulp of his juice, “if I’m going to be COO I need to know shit, right.”

“This is very true.”

“And, look I know people think I’m the jerk-off in the family, too dumb for it –,”

“I don’t think that.” She interrupts. And he stares at her then, notes the shape of her mouth, the wonderful contrast between the cream of her skin and the blue of her eyes. “Shall we get started then?”

*

**_Present_ **

She had already changed three times. For every outfit she stood in front of the mirror in she flicked back through recent memories to try to recall if she’d worn it out on a date with Roman, because if she had then it would be tarnished in some way. Hold some memory she’d rather forget.

In the end she goes for a classic black dress, she’s worn it countless times to countless events and for a night at a poetry reading it seems fair game.

She has a date. A Saturday night date.

A friend setting her up with a recently divorced neighbour.

She feels like she’s on opportunity knocks.

But she needs to date. She needs to get back to normal. So she accepted, she would attend the reading, have dinner with him. There, a pleasant night out with a pleasant gentleman. Intelligent conversation. Intellectual meeting of minds. She could do that.

Dating is another kind of game of sorts.

Ever independent she arranges to meet him at the venue and her car collects her at 7:00 sharp – on the journey over she suddenly realises she can’t remember his name and has to flick back through the messages from her friend until she finds it – Daniel, his name is Daniel. Okay. And there’s a picture and he looks pleasant enough.

He is waiting by the door, and from the blacked-out passenger windows of her car she waits for just a second, a moment’s hesitation. But she made a promise and she isn’t one to go back on things like that or let somebody down, so she gets out.

“Daniel?” She enquires and he seems delighted to meet her, reaching to hug but she shakes his hand instead.

“Gerri, right? Excuse me if I seem nervous, it’s been years since I’ve had a blind date.”

She has draped her coat over her arm, holds it in front of her like a barrier, “That’s perfectly understandable. I’m sorry if I was a bit late, the traffic was… well, you know.”

“Absolutely.” He has intense green eyes and is studying her face and she feels rather like she is being measured up, being seen for the first time. “You look lovely by the way.”

“Oh, thank you, I wasn’t quite sure what one wears for a poetry reading.”

“Let’s go in,” he says and starts to direct her inside. “I hope you don’t mind this; I know it might feel like a bit of an odd first date.”

“Not at all. I can be quiet and listen.”

He gives a short laugh at that and she wonders if he actually found it funny. Roman would have jumped on it, made some crass comment… Roman wouldn’t have come to a poetry reading without a hip flask.

_She mustn’t compare. She mustn’t compare._

She orders a Martini, sits at their table, crosses her legs, decides it makes her skirt too short and uncrosses them. The awkwardness of first dates, she’s been on enough before, she’s smart enough and educated enough to handle her conversation, cover a multitude of topics. But it still feels so damned awkward. Like she’s somehow cheating on someone, like she’ll be caught out.

There’s a list of first date rules – don’t drink too much or too quickly, don’t swear as often, don’t mention Waystar, don’t lean forward and show cleavage unless you want to see him again. All the things she’d forgotten about, because she didn’t worry about any of those things when out for dinner with Roman. She just went, and was her.

Shit. _Don’t compare._

“Here we go, Gerri.” The Martini is placed in front of her.

“Thank you, I really need this.” She takes a drink, closes her eyes at the sensation of it. Notes his glass of white wine which he sips. He still has the band of white around his finger where his wedding ring sat.

“So, Martha tells me you’re pretty powerful, job wise I mean.”

“I wouldn’t use that word exactly, but yes I suppose I’m quite high up.”

“I must admit,” he leans forward, the small venue is full of chatter. “I saw you on the news.”

“Ahh, okay,” she shrugged, “well I guess you’ve already formed an opinion on my questionable morals then.”

“Not at all, approach things with an open mind.”

“You’re a surgeon, is that right?”

“A-ha, though retirement is fast approaching. Two more years I’ll be done and out on the sailboat. Do you enjoy sailing, Gerri?”

He has said her name three times now.

“Yes,” she nods, “I don’t do it as often as I used to since my husband died, but yes I always enjoyed it.”

“I’ve recently purchased a new house, right on the lake, it’s being renovated so by the time I’m finished I’ll be saying goodbye to the city and heading out there.”

It’s reassuring how certain he is about things.

“That sounds like a lovely plan. Do you have pictures of the house?”

There is a hush to the room and she realises the reading is about to start and so turns her attention to the stage.

From her position, Daniel is slightly in front of her, his body turned at an angle to listen, and she is behind him meaning she can watch both him and the stage. He is older than her, sixty-three she guesses, a respectable age, she could date him and nobody would raise an eyebrow. And he’s handsome too, that older distinguished look. His shoulders are broad, and the back of his neck is tanned, she assumes from being out on the water so often. Quite often Roman looks unshaven and like he needs shaking to be put back together.

_Don’t compare._

And she can see it all playing out in front of her, she could quite easily fall into that role. Weekends away by the lake. Picnics. Friends called _Carole and Stan_ whose children go to Stanford and charity auctions and barbecue evenings. And she could disappear into that life and people would no longer remember who she was before, no longer associate her name with the lowlife actions of the Waystar group.

*

Two Martinis under her belt she is more relaxed by the time they reach the restaurant for dinner. It is a nice choice, a fine choice, they have a booking, they arrive two minutes before that and there is no walking the noisy, busy streets with someone pulling on her arm – though he did rest his hand on her back as they went inside.

“You have children?” He asks and she internally sighs, because she’d forgotten all that bit, that whole section where you have to go through the ins and outs of your life and explain who you are and slowly reveal bits about your views and worry about how you are portraying yourself. It’s that section right before you move on to the fucking section. And then after that there’s the period of growing intimacy and _meet my friends_ and _how about you leave your toothbrush here?_

“Two daughters,” she answers. “They both work, neither in New York though. You?”

“A son and a daughter. My son is getting married later this year, which is rather exciting, though maybe slightly awkward, it’ll be the first time I’ll spend an extended amount of time in the same vicinity of my ex-wife.” He pulls a face, then scans the menu.

“Weddings are a good place to hide family issues,” she says. “Always so busy and extravagant.”

“You went to Shiv Roy’s wedding, right?”

“A-ha.”

“That was some form of extravagance.”

She laughed, “Yes, it was.”

It occurs to her she probably earns more in a year than he does in five. Most men would find that intimidating, she wonders if he cares, or even realises. She does the soft-voiced thing so very well it’s easy to forget what a killer she can be, or never even know. Being an enigma has some benefits.

That’s the other thing about first dates, considering what to eat – nothing with a sauce for if it spills, nothing too messy, nothing too filling or stodgy for if her stomach swells and sticks out in her dress.

Salad. Fish and salad.

Nothing with chocolate in.

Wine. Not Champagne.

“So, Gerri,” he starts as they wait to be served. “Tell me about your interests.”

“You mean besides work?”

He chuckled, “Okay, so workaholic?”

“You could say that. And I do apologise for looking at my phone every now and then, I feel I’m constantly on call.”

“Ah, I turned mine off for tonight.”

She nodded, “Well, my boss isn’t quite so easy going if I miss something vital.”

“I’m taking this to mean you don’t work standard hours then?”

“Ha, hardly. Nor have a standard timetable, I could suddenly be flying out to Hong Kong at the drop of a hat to handle something.”

He frowned, “You don’t find that draining, I mean at our age I like the reliability of routine. Being organised and steady. I think I’ve reached a point where I can separate my work life from my private life.”

She nodded, chewed her lip. “Exhilarating. I find it exhilarating.”

*

**_Japan – past_ **

“I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this, Roman,” she had said when he turned up at her hotel room door. “We can just eat in the hotel.”

“What’s the point in being in Tokyo and eating in the hotel?”

She stood back, admitted him into her room. “I’ll have to change.” She was still in her work suit from the day. “What about the others, Robert and –,”

“Fuck that! Those two have got about as much conversation as two boiled turtle eggs. No, leave them here. Any luck they might get drunk and screw so we have something to joke about on the flight home.”

“You’re a real little bastard, aren’t you?” She said, a flash of humour crossing her face.

“I try to be,” he said proudly. He was stalking around her room, picking up bits of the decoration and momentarily studying it before discarding it again.

“I’ll change,” she said again, and she disappeared through a door at the other side of the room.

It was only when he was flipping through a book she’d left on the coffee table that he realised it was a little jarring to be in her room, like going into her home or something, it meant crossing a line between work colleagues and people who actually know each other. She’d marked the page she was on with a slip of paper and he scanned what she’d just read, feeling odd about touching the page she had been holding.

“We’ll find a busy place and demand a table.” He called out to her.

“Okay, is that how you do things then? Throw money and hope someone catches it?”

“It’s worked out well so far.” He glances up, realises the bedroom door is open the tiniest amount and he can see the corner of her bed and her shadow as she moves about. She might be naked… he almost gawps at that, to consider Gerri naked after years of boring business suits and tightly twisted hair.

“Apart from accidentally blowing things up, of course,” she is back in the room then and she’s taking her hair down and it’s not until many weeks later that he realised that was where the infatuation with her hair began – watching her walk into the room and shaking it loose from the clip she had it fastened so tightly in.

“Okay, I’m ready.” She’s in jeans, he’s never seen her in jeans. And a loose blouse. And she looks different somehow, relaxed, like a different Gerri. “Hey, Roman,” she snaps her fingers, “Are you stoned?”

“Not yet, maybe later.” He opens the door and they head out.

He is confident and full of bravado in the street, he loves the energy and speed of everything, saps it all in like a sponge and he never stops talking, she’s not sure she realised that quite so much before, but he really never stops. His mind must move a full thirty seconds faster than everybody else’s because sometimes she’s only just hooked onto the topic he’s on and formed a reply and he’s already bounced on to the next thing.

It’s tiring, it’s challenging.

He flips through his phone for the best place around and they do indeed walk to the front of the queue and get a table. She feels a bit like his mother, or an aunt at least, as he slaps people on the back and parades to his table like some cock-of-the-show.

“I’m confused,” she says as she settles into her seat.

“Over?”

“Why I’m here. You could have picked up anyone on the walk through alone, male or female.”

“Or one of each,” he opened his menu, “What can I say, I like your talk.”

“My talk?”

“Yeah. You’re good to talk to. Easy.”

She raised her eyebrows, “I am?”

“Like having a chat with a viper pit snake.”

“Is that a real thing?”

“I have no idea but I like how it fits you. Besides, I’m not in the mood tonight.”

“I’m assuming that refers to sex so I’ll leave it be. And thank goodness, or this could be a very confusing evening.”

He laughed openly, “See, I like that. Good talk. So, shall we share a selection of dishes?”

“You want to share food with me?”

“Sure, it’s better that way. Get to taste more. What’s wrong with that?”

“You don’t strike me as much of a sharer.” She says, closing the menu – he’s already decided so there’s no point in looking.

“We don’t have to, it’s not like fucking marriage commitment or something… You’re alright with spice I guess.”

She chuckled at that, “Would it matter if I weren’t?”

“Is this me being inconsiderate?”

She shrugged at that, “I’ve actually not seen you this enthusiastic about many things.”

“I like this kind of food.”

“Well then I’m happy to try whatever you think.”

He nodded, beckoning a waiter and ordering.

“So, you wanna like let me ask you scandalous questions?” He poured her a shot and she picked the glass up and downed it in one, coughing slightly at the strength of it.

“Scandalous questions…?” She rolled her eyes. “It depends.”

“On what I ask? That’s no fucking fun!” He laughed. “The fun is in the shock factor.”

“What the hell you want to know?”

“Mmm, first dates.”

“Okay…” She chewed on her lip.

“You strike me as someone who doesn’t fuck on the first date.”

“Why are we having this conversation again?”

“Hey you could be out with Mr and Mrs Dulldate.”

She smirked, she shouldn’t, she should shake her head at him and scold. But no, she smirked. “I’m intrigued as to why you think it’s appropriate to ask me such questions.”

“I suspect you don’t really give a fuck. You can take it,” he threw out at her, lounging back in his chair. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

She twirled her shot glass on the table, “I’ve seen and heard enough over the years to cope, yes. And the answer is as a rule, no.”

“As a rule?” He laughed at that, almost slapping his leg in delight. It was fun to push her, find her buttons and continually press them. “I’ve underestimated you.”

“In what way? Christ this is strong stuff.”

“More to you than meets the eye,” he tapped the side of his head. “Gerri Kellman, lady of mystique.”

“Roman Roy, Peter Pan.”

He tilted his head at that, “Ooh, boy child, me likey. Does that mean I still get a spanking if I get out of hand?”

“With a baseball bat.”

He roared with laughter, which was good, because for a second she thought she’d gone too far.

“How’d you feel it went today?” He suddenly asked, refilling her glass.

“Actually you were good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” she smiled, “you find the right tone, with both the survivors and the press. It’s a charm offensive that works.”

“Thanks very much, be sure to pass that along to the old man.”

She doesn’t respond to that.

“All your guidance of course, top advice. She stays the right side of calm at the back of the room.”

“When the hell does the food get here, I need you to eat so my brain can have a rest.”

He laughs yet again at that, it’s infectious, she thinks.

*

“You think they eat tortoise over here?” He states later, when they've eaten too much and worked their way through a fair amount of shots.

“Don’t fucking start with the tortoise jokes,” she said, waving a cracker at him. “You know they really aren’t funny.”

“They are funny.”

“ _Fucking my tortoise_ , that’s not funny.”

He laughed anyway, he was drunk and he suspected she was too because she was leaning across the table now and giggling and it was one of the best sounds he’d ever heard.

“Who’s got the tortoise whilst you’re here. Poor little guy.”

“The tortoise is in a zoo, with other tortoises… is that right? Toirteese?”

“Now that I fucking like.” He lifted his glass and slammed it against hers. “Let’s get some whisky.”

“God no, I’ve had too much of this stuff already.”

“We fly home tomorrow, another sixteen hours of boredom on the hell hole. We might as well sleep the hangover off. To be fair I’m impressed you’ve kept up.”

“Mmm, so am I.”

He waved his arm and within minutes there was Japanese Whisky on the table.

“So, to the torteese of the world.”

“That’s a really shit toast.” She said, holding her glass towards his.

“Okay then, you toast.”

“To… not going to prison for accidentally blowing up a fucking rocket!”

“Technically I didn’t ‘blow it up’, but I’ll drink to that anyway.” He knocked his glass against hers. “Gerri, Gerri, Gerri… quite the revelation.”

*

**_Present_ **

After dinner he asks her to come back for coffee.

She’d decided over the few hours they’ve been together that this is a perfectly nice man. A little clumsy at times, a little too prescriptive perhaps, but nice nevertheless. And nice men don’t usually ask you back to their apartment for sex dressed up as coffee, but then she’s not sure which she’d prefer anyway. Coffee and yet more stunted small talk. Or sex and get it over with.

She agrees to go and she’ll never really admit to herself why.

When they’re in his lounge drinking espresso and he’s playing her some jazz recordings she feels like she’s outside of herself. Watching events from afar, acting how she feels women on good dates act – because this is a perfectly good date, perfectly decent.

It becomes fairly obvious twenty minutes in that the man is hoping for more than she just jazz and chatter, and he’s an attractive man, she’s not averse to the idea when he moves closer on the couch. A hand sneaking to her leg, his head moving down and inching closer until she feels him kiss her. Her eyes are open. She watches his reactions as he does it like some clinical experiment – can she feel what he feels when it happens?

She isn’t on a yacht though with a young man’s head in her lap, stroking his hair, tuned into his heartbeat.

Some switch goes off in her brain, like turning off a light, and in the darkness you can do more then because you aren’t watching yourself, seeing yourself. She allows him to unzip her dress, to kiss the back of her neck and down her spine. Closes her eyes against this distant nagging, this questioning of is this what she really wants.

She needs to do it. It is March, she has lingered too long already in memories and what-could-have-beens.

And besides, she is desirable, he is reminding her of that. His hands on her body remind her she is desired.

There is no laughter though, she keeps thinking of that, when he’s slipping her dress off and his palms are on her breasts. There is no talk, no chatter, no jokes. He’s not smiling at her, making eye contact, holding her gaze, not in the way… She squeezes her eyes shut.

In his bed there are starched grey sheets and plump pillows. Everything is expensive and just so, fitted perfectly into some manicured life. Like hers. This could work, he is calm and stable like her, practical, well organised. There will be no off-the-cuff remarks that could get her in trouble; he would never be late or openly criticise the host at a party; no dirty jokes; no silly nicknames; no intimate dancing in the back of a hot club. No hand between her legs in the back of the car on the journey home.

When he’s on top of her she thinks she might regret it. But this is the path she has taken, and it’s too late to go back now. She finds that place in her head, clouds, and drifts, and lets him do the things that lovers do. Only he isn’t her lover. She can’t picture him in that role, not now, not now she’s actually doing it – and she’s not so far gone that she can’t realise the absurdity of that. This will be a one-off thing and she’ll ignore his calls for the next week and tell her friend to discreetly inform him it’s a no go.

But for now he’s coming inside her and she lets him and that is a punishment in and of itself.

When he sleeps she dresses. Leaves. Gets a cab. It’s the first time she’s hailed a cab in years, had forgotten what it’s like not to be in the back of her car. And she can’t help but think of the white haired man who she just had rather average sex with and then she’s laughing because Roman would find that hilarious and she wishes she could text him and make some comment on blue pills and old men humping, but she can’t.

The cab driver glances at her in the mirror once or twice as she sniggers into her hand. It’s not really funny, it’s quite tragic really, and she knows that but still. She is fifty-eight and not immune from making fuck-ups. Sex with someone she wasn’t really into was a mistake, but it wasn’t the first time she’d half-heartedly gone into it. And in a week’s time she probably wouldn’t even remember.

*

When she wakes the following morning Daniel has sent two texts and she skips over them both and hopes he won’t become a nuisance.

And then, over coffee and her croissant and the papers, her phone bleeps and it’s the first time his name has appeared in months and it makes her breath catch. She is cautious as she opens it.

**> Have paid for Lara to attend drama school starting in the fall.**

She wonders why he tells her that. Why he feels the need to share it. In her heart she already knows, but wondering is a safer bet.

**> Good, that’s kind.**

He never replies. And on Monday she hears he’s been sent over to Europe to take care of a few things. He’ll be gone for weeks. She is glad of the respite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felt emotional last few days, so thank you to those who continue to correspond with me and keep me going x


End file.
